On the way to the coast for the
day I stopped at a pretty church in Lancashire for a coffee and a sandwich.
Someone had told me there was a singer songwriter buried in the cemetery. I’d
never heard of him but I went for a look anyway. He wrote a number 1 hit
apparently called Chirpy, Chirpy, Cheep,
Cheep which reached the top of the charts in the seventies in many
countries.
Lally (real name
Harold Stott) spent several years in Italy as the front-man of the 1960s
Liverpool beat band The Motowns. Over the years he
wrote songs for artists (like Engelbert Humperdinck)
and bands and gained moderate success.
Sadly he died aged 32 in June 1977. He’d been
living in Italy and returned to England to set up a boutique with his sister. His
motor scooter had been stolen and the police had found it and just returned it
to him. Riding out on it a car pulled out in front of him and he rose into a
telegraph pole. He was rushed to hospital but died three days later.
There was an impressive array of flowers on the
grave considering he's been gone 40+ years. Thirty-two is only second gear
isn't it? Poor kid. I did a salute and left.